Mark Sanford wins House Seat in Special Election

Wonders never cease to amaze me. Republican Mark Sanford has won the House Seat in a special election against Stephen Colbert’s sister, Elizabeth Colbert Busch who is a greenhorn in the political arena.

Sanford, a Republican who admitted an extramarital affair in 2009, was ready to quit politics for good if he was not victorious in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District. He will replace Republican Tim Scott, who was appointed to the Senate.

The former governor — once a rising GOP star considered presidential material — was an early favorite in the Republican district, which Mitt Romney carried by 18 percentage points in the 2012 election. But the revelation that his ex-wife, Jenny, accused Sanford of trespassing at her home caused the National Republican Congressional Committee to withdraw its financial and logistical support and gave Colbert Busch an opening.

Sanford is due in court within the week over trespassing at his former wife’s home. So much for family values. Sanford, while pitiable, really left office in disgrace. Not only did he leave the country, he also left no way for anyone to get in touch with him while he was gallivanting back and forth to South America. Sanford lied to his wife and deserted his children at the time. Sanford failed to call his children on Father’s Day.

Before his fling, Sanford had been a family values politician. I am surprised the good people of South Carolina are willing to give him and his fiance another chance.

Elena :Watch the entire debate Steve and you will understand that the reaction of dems was to an amendment that repubs were submitting clarifying that sexual orientation did not include beastiality and pedophilia among other stupid examples of illegal acts.@Elena

I did, way before you did, clearly. When I first mentioned this, you had know idea what I was talking about. I read the transcript and the congressional record too. I read the proposed bill. What is wrong with clarifying a vague piece of legislation, if the ammended legislation accomplished what you think it is intended to accomplish: offer legal protections against attempts to change a person’s “sexual orientation”, with “sexual orientation” to mean whatever the prevailing view of the term “sexual orientation” to mean? Is “Transgender” an orientation? I thought if a male was attracted to males, that meant “homosexual”, which according to the law is “just fine” Does Transgender mean “body doesn’t match orientation”? Lesbian…woman attracted to woman…recognized orientation, under the law. Harvard Medical says pedophilia is an “orientation”. Proposed law says “orientaton change therapy is bad”. Law gets passed. Some pedophile defies a court order for treatment, arguing this is “orientation” according to Harvard Medical 2010 publication. Federal law says attempts to “change orientation” is illegal. Court finds against defendent. Defendent appeals…wins on appeal when a brilliant legal scholar like (Former, impeached) Federal Judge Alcee Hastings sits on the bench. Precedent for “pedophilia is an orientation” is set. Prosecutor appeals…goes all the way to the SCOTUS…annnnd BAM!

all because of bad law, written with the best of intentions, to legislate “inclusivity”, defended by a couple of ideologues, to satisfy one segment of society, while opening the door to a whole bunch of other issues…

So, what next: the guy (or gal) who goes to a therapist because of issues with fidelity. This egg-head says his “orientation” is Polyamory. Well, if that’s his orientation, shouldn’t he be able to live his “polyamorus orientation” to the fullest, enjoying all of the fruits of marriage-equality…he should be able to marry as many women (or men) as he wants…afterall, we don’t want to exclude anybody.

Pedophilia IS an orientation. We can all choose to remain in denial about that, but it pretty clearly is, arguably just by its definition. God or Mother Nature made pedophiles; sexual attraction to children is not something that most of us do or could have inside us.

Pedophilia is a crime that victimizes children. I am not ready to say it is an orientation. An orientation is straight or gay. How about sick MOFO proclivity?

People may have proclivities towards S & M, pedophilia, cross-dressing, animals or a whole bunch of nasty I don’t want to think about. That isn'[t their orientation. I am not going to buy into orientation.

Elena :FYI, DSM no longer listed homosexuality as a mental disorder so why do you continue to attempt to conjoin pedophilia with homosexuality?

My point exactly. Rightly or wrongly, there was a point in time, where society and the medical community defined homosexuality as a mental disorder. Now they don’t. What is to stop peodophilia from one day getting this same consideration? The law? I’ve just spent considerable effort laying out a logical argument that bad laws get tested and struck down all the time. Same can happen to bigamy laws, and each time this happens, we slide a little bit closer to the edge.

Bigamy and polygamy are very different. Just ask a Mormon. I got laughed at for not knowing the difference while I was in Utah. Let’s say bigamy became legal. Is that the only thing stopping you from practicing it? I would think probably Mrs. T would pack your lunch and kick you out the door.

What keeps pedophilia from being the norm? People protect their children. You are taking something most people find abhorent to an illogical conclusion.

Why did we stop allowing lobotomies? If you look at it that way, life is a slippery slope.

Regardless of what jerk gets up and postures and blathers about what…it doesn’t make a law bad necessarily.

Rick, there was a time where the “more enlightened, more compassionate” believed the same thing about homosexuals. “who’d want to be born that way, never marrying, sufferring all that discrimination, or legal trouble if one is caught just being who they were born to be?”. So society changed to be more accepting, and now the laws are being changed to match….yep, same thing happend in Rome.

Regardless of laws, people were still gay. What has changed other than we don’t stone gays hopefully.

Hmmmmmmm…..gays got more open and started voting as a block. So THAT’s what this conversation is all about. Silly me.

Be nicer to them Steve, and they might be more willing to vote R.

One of my best friends is a gay Republican male. I always ask him if he is still contributing to his own oppression. Actually, he sounds very much like you do. But….you have a much prettier spouse than he does!!!!!!

Rick Bentley :Pedophilia IS an orientation. We can all choose to remain in denial about that, but it pretty clearly is, arguably just by its definition. God or Mother Nature made pedophiles; sexual attraction to children is not something that most of us do or could have inside us.

Rick,

Remember “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell”? I do. I was serving as a commissioned officer in the USMC when it was passed. The logic was sound, I believed at the time; you will not be excluded based on your orientation, but you will be prosecuted, based on your conduct because homosexual practices are prohibited under the UCMJ. This replaced the law that forbade homosexuals from serving, and they would be discharged if discovered to be homosexual. Less than 20 years later, it (Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell) was repealed based on the argument that people should be free to live their lives according to their orientation, to the fullest extent possible, so now gays and lesbians are free to serve openly. Not my intent to comment on the “rightness or wrongness” of it, but just to cite an example of how a little change in perception here, change in attitude there, change the law to match, and institutions are forever altered, without much consideration as to the unintended consequences. In the case of DA/DT and DOMA, these will collide in June. If DOMA is struck down, gays and lesbians in the military will be allowed to marry. Again, for better or worse, this will have an impact on this institution. When I enlisted in 1984, I never thought gays would be allowed to serve, yet here we are.

So someday, Pedophiles may be able to serve openly in the military, and the the Gunny can have more than one wife… Yep, I’m crazy to believe that. Never happen they say.

I think it depends on who is asking. Law enforcement has one definition and the APA has another. I would classify someone who collected pictures of prepubescent children as a pedophile also. That’s certainly illegal.

I think we are splitting hairs. Yes, it is possible for someone to have those interests without acting on it in any way. Hypothetically. I so see what you are saying, I just think it is nit picking.

“Rick, there was a time where the “more enlightened, more compassionate” believed the same thing about homosexuals. “who’d want to be born that way, never marrying, sufferring all that discrimination, or legal trouble if one is caught just being who they were born to be?”. So society changed to be more accepting, and now the laws are being changed to match….”

Yes. I still see no reason in there to treat gay people differently than straights (or asexuals).

“yep, same thing happend in Rome.’

Decadence is what leads a society towards acceptance of pedophilia. Indeed we are sliding into decadence – a nation where we increasingly depend on others to do our physical work, and where we feel we’re born entitled, and where we increasingly move to satisfy every urge. And pursue happiness through physical sensations. But I don’t put acceptance of homosexuality in this category. To me, that’s more an awareness of what’s real and a developing sense of morality on our parts. I’d correlate the obesity level in America, or the way we’ve given up on manufactuiring goods, or our spiraling financial mess and level of debt to decadence before i correlate gay tolerance to it.

I will join the chorus. Some animals are gay and there were gay cave men. Indians and Eskimos had gays in the tribes. Just is. I certainly don’t think that they are any more inclined to be pedophiles than straight people.

Alcee Hastings’ remarks were made in reference to the 2009 Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention ACT, which provides federal assistance in prosecuting crimes of violence “motivated by prejudice on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim.”

Why are you morphing a California issue,California SB 1172, with federal issue, they are not connected.

Well … it’s theoretically possible. But I doubt it. Certainly not within our lifetimes. We in the USA are more disturbed by adult sex with teenagers than most other countries – we’re considered “prudish” by most European countries on this matter. And we are at least as profoundly disturbed by pedophilia as any other country I can think of. I don’t see that changing.

Over the long term, maybe the age of consent will swing up or down. But pedophilia, involving by definition “pre-teens”, which by anyone’s account has victims, is very much frowned on by every modern society. Increasingly, over time.

We actually understand pedophilia much better now that we did 30-40 years ago. Back then when someone molested a kid, it seemed like a “bizarre action” that was a random side effect of mental illness or alchohol or drug use. And accordingly, pedophiles would get out of jail. One guy who was in the news a few years back had in the early 70’s hit a very young girl in the head with a hammer, dragged her off and raped her. He did small amount of jail time and was let out – it was thought that he was a promising young man who had made a crazed mistake because of drug use. Now, we understand the problem much better. Because we have researchers who have studied the phenomenon objectively. We understand that the problem doesn’t really mitigate, that the recidivism rate is high. And our laws have evolved accordingly.

Rational study are not leading to greater acceptance of pedophiles. Once identified as “sexually violent”, they go into a system that they don’t ever really come out of. At worst they’re kept segregated in facilities; at best they’re released but tracked and their identities made public via web sites. It’s harsh but it’s the way it is and the way most of us want it.

I am going to be a real jerk and pull age on this discussion. 34 years ago I was fairly closely concerned as a neighborhood activist with a child abduction/child molestation case. It turns out that the molester was a 16 year old emotionally and mentally handicapped boy. Before he was caught, I went very public in order to help catch this creep. I had all sorts of people calling me. (all friendly I might add) Several of the callers were people who worked with pedophiles/child molesters. they all told me, that regardless of what anyone told me, molesters almost always returned to their old nasty habits, regardless of what was done to them. In other words, rehabilitation was a waste of time.

The victim was 3 years old. The molester was only put away after repeating his nasty habits on several more little girls. i believe society and the mental health profession knew a whole lot more about this affliction that the court system. The judge and the laws were weak. The prosecutors were great.

I think it was a matter of the laws catching up to reality. This would have been 1978.

I can assure you that no one thought of this incident as bizarre. They thought he was one sick mofo. That kid is lucky he didnt end up in the community pool in cement overshoes.

In his case, he didn’t fit into the realm of normal anyway. However, that’s probably the only reason he got by with what he did. He was deemed unfit to stand trial.

I think the real area where we have learned a lot of when it is in families rather than abductions. It’s very difficult for families to understand, even today, why Uncle Jonas gropes 10 year olds. There is much denial. I have had 2 friends where this went on. One of these friends never did tell the wife of the groper. It was her aunt.

I think where it is wrong is when young men get caught up with under age girls and someone wants to make an example out of them. I mean like an 28 year old and a 16 year old. This behavior, in most cases, is not pedophilia. If the kids are prepubescent, that’s an entirely different matter and I don’t think people like that should be allowed free.

Elena :Steve,As long as you keep suggesting that Gay people are the “slippery slope” to child molesters, I will keep telling you how incredibly misguided you are in that premise.

Elena,

, OK, lemme spell it out for you:

I don’t oppose legislation that bars discrimination against people, based on their sexual orientation, regarding empolyment by any organization subject to the laws administered by the EEOC.

I don’t oppose getting rid of laws that were used to make homosexual activity illegal, ie. sodomy laws.

I don’t opposed the rights of gays to enter into civil unions, or any other private contract, which may be part of a property rights, medical rights, etc, that may have historically been included as part of the civil rights and benefits associated with civil marriage. What I do oppose is any law that would force a church to perform a religious marriage. I would oppose any law that would force one state to recognize a marriage from any other state, if their state prohibited same-sex marriage. Same would apply to polygamous marriages. Look, I can see the writing on the wall, with regards to gay marriage. Some states are going to decide to have it, some will not. Since the states themselves license marriages, let it be left up to the states. However, contract law is contract law. Let any powers of attorney, living-wills or anything else subject to probate be honored across state line.

In short, I don’t hate gays, or lesbians, or transgenders, or any other broken person for that matter. I pity them. I am sure that along the path of self-acceptance, they at times wished they weren’t born that way.

But, to get to the point I have been trying to make, all along, is when the government is making laws, the words that make up the legislation matter. Specificity matters. If a CA congresswoman wants to make a law passed in her state a national law, the language in that proposed legislation needs to be clear, specific, and acceptable to those who aren’t in her state. If we are going to make a law intended to protect gays, lesbians, Bi-sexuals, heterosexuals,from attempts to change that which society has defined as “normal and acceptable” , while society is still engaged in defining “orientation” we’d better be very specific, and write this into the law. Don’t leave it purposefully vague, so that someone can use this in the future to defend themselves from legal action, ie. and unintended consequence.

I have already cited examples of scientists and medical publications defining pedophillia as an “orientation”. You, Elena, say it is not. I use the whole history of the homosexual evolution in our society not to condemn homosexuals, but to simply illustrate a point, with which you can disagree, but you’d be wrong: There was a point in our society’s history, where gays and lesbians were not accepted, and their engaging in sexual relationships was illegal. Now, they are generally accepted, and most of the laws that made their conduct illegal, have been struck down. This is a demonstrable fact, not my opinion.

Lest we not forget, it’s not the urge, but the action that gets people in trouble. I could have the urge to murder my neighbor, but I haven’t committed a crime until I act on it. Accepting pedophilia as a “natural orientation” and prohibiting treatment to change that, is far different from stricking down the laws that prohibit adults having sex with children. Is the teacher caught sleeping with the 14 year-old charged with “child molestation”? Rarely. Are “age of consent” laws consistantly being defined downward? Heck, if the fed has its way, a 15 year-old girl can go buy morning after-pills, but couldn’t buy a pack of cigarettes (18) or a beer (21). This is why I say our society is standing on a “slippery slope”.

I don’t think churches should be forced to marry anyone. Different churches have different conditions for marriage.

I do think marriage laws should be uniform. I think the right to marry (or civil union) is a civil right and civil rights should cross state lines.

Now, how young, etc can remain with the states.

As for the queestion of 14 year olds….I believe that pedophilia actually deals with pre-pubescent children. Some 14 year olds appear to be 24 rather than 14. I am not ready to label someone a pedophile if say that person is 18. 40, yes. 18 no.

Some are defining it as an “orientation”. Then we have to define “child”. When is a “child” a “child”. If a 19 yearold is killed with a gun, they classify it as a “child killed by gun violence”, but if that “child” is married and has a baby, they call that a “teen pregnancy”. Or if a 15 year-old tries to buy a pack of smokes, they get turned away for being a minor, but that same child is permitted to buy oral contraceptives, without consulting a doctor or gaining consent from their custodial parent. Yet the age of consent may be 16, so if an adult has sex with a 15 yearold, gets the 15 yearold pregnant, is the adult a pedophile? Forget “slippery”…we’re living on a freaking ski-slope.

Perhaps we need to hone in on definitions. You left out ‘child’ being used to describe an embryo.

Steve, I simply don’t see what point you are attempting to prove. Obviously no one approves of pedophilia or child molesting. Now what do we mean?

I don’t consider an 18 year old dating a 15 year old a pedophile. I do consider a 40 yer old attempting to date a 15 year old…something…not good. I would probably consider the dude a pedophile. Legally? Not sure.

Then again, we are always someone’s child. If it were my child killed by gun violence, then they would be my child, even if they were 50.

Life is a slippery slope. Nothing is laid out in black and white. Hopefully common sense will prevail.

I think these definnions are important. We’ll all find more agreement when semantics stop seperating us. So in the service of precise definition –

Pedophilia is attraction to pre-pubescent children.

Attraction to teenagers is called ephebophelia. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephebophilia :Ephebophilia is the primary or exclusive adult sexual interest in mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19.

“Chronophelia” encompasses pedophilia and ephebophilia as well as attraction to older age ranges.

Ephebophilia is something you can see shades of or references to within popular culture. And whole lines of pornography that cater to it – “Barely Legal” etc. By contrast NO ONE I’ve ever met had any interest in or posession of any type of product that presented pedophilia in any light other than serious business. Only exceptions I remember are some art house films that got famously labeled as child porn (“The Tin Drum’, “Sweet Sweetback’s Badass Song”), some underground comic books, and those horrible cartoons in Hustler years back – and all of those things are dated to the 1970’s, not more recently.

Though I guess to be fair I’ve seen jokes about it on “sick” humor outlets like “Family Guy” in more recent years.

But my larger point – frequently obscured by my zigging and zagging – I don’t think we are sliding towards acceptance of pedophilia. And we’ve certainly tightened ourselves up against it from where we were 40 years ago.